Nomination paper verifications completed; ECP says fraudsters will not be spared even after winning elections

ISLAMABAD, (SANA): The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Sunday said that the scrutiny of the declarations made in the nomination papers would continue even after the elections and those found to have deceived would be declared disqualified ever after winning the election; meanwhile the scrutiny of the nomination papers of the candidates was completed on Sunday.

ECP Additional Secretary Afzal Khan replying to a question clarified that the process of scrutiny would continue even after elections. The election commission has ordered the interim government to appoint Zaffar Qadir Baloch as secretary information technology till today (Monday).

The second phase of the preparations towards general elections scheduled for May 11 ended with the completion of the verification of nomination papers on Sunday.

Election Commission had received over 24,000 nomination papers across the country.

The scrutiny of nomination papers had started on April 1 and according to EC it had received a total of 24,094 nomination papers.

EC had received 7,364 nomination papers for the National Assembly seats while it received 16,730 papers for the provincial assembly seats.

The appeal against the rejection of nomination papers could be filed till April 10 and verdicts over them by the relevant retuning officer would be announced by April 17. Candidates could withdraw their nomination papers by April 18. EC would issue the final list of the candidates on April 19.

The election commission has ordered FBR, state bank, NADRA and NAB to put the data of candidates on the website with the next 48 hours.

The Additional Secretary General Muhammad Afzal Khan has said that the information about the candidates would be placed before the masses.

Additional Secretary Afzal Khan said that the time period of scrutiny of candidates ended at the 4:00 pm and it will not be extended.

The candidates whose nomination papers have not been accepted could file review appeals from today (Monday).

Nine election tribunals have been set up for the hearing of the review appeals. The candidates could file review petitions in three days.